Best Herta Honkai: Star Rail Light Cone and Relic Build
Aside from the memes about her spinning and her amazing synergy with Himeko, Herta is a good unit of scholarship in Honkai: Star Rail, especially for F2P players. Not only is she free if you complete the novice missions, she also grants you her Eidolons if you complete the simulated universe. While Herta’s follow-up attack may not be as effective in long battles compared to her current Scholar comrades (Himeko and Jing Yuan), she is a great unit against mobs and calyxes. To get the best out of Herta Honkai: Star Railher relics and beams of light should improve the efficiency of her follow-up attacks.
To understand which relics and beams to attach to Herta, you first need to understand how her kit works. Herta’s follow-up attack deals AoE ice damage whenever an enemy’s HP falls below 50%. This does not stack. Even if you reduce two enemies’ HP to 50% in a single move, Herta will still only spin around once. Aside from her follow-up attack, Herta is an AoE ice attacker, making her more suited to fights with lots of enemies rather than boss fights.
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- Before dawn
So far in the game, Before Dawn is the best Erudition Light Cone as it greatly increases your character’s critical damage, skill, and ultimate ability. Additionally, at S0, the character’s follow-up attack damage is increased by 48% after using a skill or ultimate ability. This is fantastic for Herta, whose equipment revolves around her spinning. Unfortunately, Before Dawn is a limited 5-star Light Cone, making it difficult to obtain. - The seriousness of breakfast
Like Before Dawn, The Seriousness of Breakfast is a really good piece of general scholarship. It increases the wearer’s ATK for each enemy they defeat, making it a good item of clothing to wear while gathering resources. - The birth of the self
This beam of light increases damage from follow-up attacks by 24%. It also deals an additional 24% follow-up attack damage when the opponent’s HP falls below 50%, which happens to be the triggering condition for Herta’s Spin anyway.
As for Relics, there aren’t many options for Herta at the moment. You should focus on giving her relics that increase her critical abilities so she can deal more damage per follow-up attack. Unlike Himeko or Jing Yuan, her follow-up attack can only be activated once per enemy. So try to make it count.
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- Hunters of the Glacial Forest
Hunter of Glacial Forest is currently the Relic of choice for Ice characters. Not only does it passively increase ice damage by 10%, but it also increases crit damage by 25% for two turns after you use your ultimate. If you stack enough energy regeneration on Herta, it should be easy for her to restore it. - Wild Wheat Musketeer
This is one of the better general sets as it increases ATK, SPD, and base ATK damage. You can also combine Musketeer with Hunter depending on what you have on hand. - The ash-flaming Grand Duke + Hunter of the Glacial Forest
Since Herta’s follow-up attack can technically only be used once per enemy, she cannot fully utilize the set’s 4-piece effect (which increases ATK each time a follow-up attack deals damage). Therefore the set of 2 is more than enough for her. You can replace Hunter with Musketeer depending on what you have. - Inert salsotto
This increases the wearer’s critical strike rate, as well as ultimate and follow-up attack damage by 15% when critical strike rate reaches 50%. Obviously you need to get a sufficient critical hit rate on Herta before this is even useful. Her E2 and Traces increase critical hit rate if you’re having no luck with relics.
Honkai: Star Rail is easily available on mobile devices and Windows PCs. It will be released on PS4 and PS5 in the future. You can get Herta for free and earn copies for her through Simulated Universe. She is also in the gacha.